‘The New Jim Crow’ Banned In New Jersey Prisons: The ACLU Vows To Fight

The civil liberties organization calls the ban unconstitutional.

Some New Jersey prisons added Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow to their list of banned publications, The Guardian reported. Officials are concerned that the book’s powerful message could awaken inmates to discrimination in the criminal justice system.

“For the state burdened with this systemic injustice to prohibit prisoners from reading a book about race and mass incarceration is grossly ironic, misguided, and harmful,” Tess Borden, an ACLU staff attorney, said a letter to New Jersey’s corrections commissioner, noting that the state has the nation’s largest racial disparity incarceration rate.

I taught Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, in my last two classes at @IRAASColumbiaU. It not only belongs in every prison but in the office of every member of Congress and every state legislator. https://t.co/Fc5k1eTbaw

The ACLU, which obtained the list from a public records request, argued that the ban violated the inmates’ First Amendment rights. Prisoners are typically banned from obtaining reading material that would incite violence or instruct them on how to do things like create explosive devices. The book does neither of those things. Instead, it illuminates the true nature of the contemporary system of racial control and the role of the criminal justice system in that scheme. Their fear is having Black inmates who are wise to the system.

Here’s a small taste of what folks are saying on Twitter.

Every American should read the New Jim Crow.

When I am governor any library in the state that does not have a copy— including those in our prisons— will receive one from me.

After all, my official endorsement of The New Jim Crow appears on the back of the first printing. https://t.co/JV4Pr8AjeE

They've banned Michelle Alexander's book "The New Jim Crow"? Makes sense. Major corporations & politicians are invested in prisons. They don't want the modern day slaves to know the truth. The Truth would set them free. Haven't read the book? Buy it now before they ban it period. pic.twitter.com/I6oqS1EWvJ